Page 126 of Oaths of Ruin: Vol I, Blood Moon
My body goes stiff with a fear I've never felt before as the ground that had been distant only seconds ago rushes up toward us in terrifying, impossible detail. Trees. River. Rock.
Too close.
We’re too close.
“AHRIA!”Her name bellows out of me, scraping against my throat, and this time something pulses through the bond.
I brace for impact, only for the ground to vanish behind a rush of green scales. Her full-grown claws close around me,hauling me against her chest as one wing snaps over my body. Above us, the other wing whips through the air and she twists hard, turning herself beneath me.
Then the ground hits.
Not me.
Her.
The brutal force smashes through her body and into mine, snapping my teeth together, crushing my scream flat against her scales as we tumble and the world explodes into dirt and broken branches until finally we stop.
At first, there is only a piercing ringing in my ears.
Then the taste of blood spills into my mouth, the rough scrape of bark under my cheek and the limp, heavy weight of Ahria’s claws around me.
“Ahria?!” My voice cracks on her name, but there’s no answer. No rumble. No snap of irritation through the bond. Just her huge body curled around mine, too still.
With my heart hammering so hard I can’t even feel the individual beats anymore, I scramble out from beneath her wing and stumble toward her head.
Her violet eyes are closed and I can't tell if she's breathing.
“No.” The tears come freely now as she shrinks back down to her tiny size. “No, no, no. I only just got you. You can't die now. You can't?—”
THUMP.
The ground shakes as the dragon lands behind us, and my pulse stops with it.
Reaching for my Threads, I spin, throwing my right arm out, pain ripping through my shoulder with the movement. Still, I clench my jaw and pull for my magic anyway.
But Ahria’s Threads are gone.
Cut off.
Mine are still there, but compared to hers they feel like scraps. Nothing that could protect me from a dragon. Or a bonded rider.
Magic sparks at my fingertips as another figure in white slides down the yellow dragon’s scales, shorter than the one who attacked me before.
Keeping my focus locked on them, I back up, my left arm stretching wide like that might somehow protect Ahria behind me, and I throw out the strongest blast of air I can manage.
But the shorter robed figure moves fast, pulling a shield around themselves and dread consumes me as my attack breaks against it like nothing.
Then their shield drops, and the figure starts toward me, their boots crunching over sticks and debris from our fall as an eerily familiar chuckle slips out from beneath their hood.
Lifting his hands, the figure cracks his knuckles as he walks, then hooks his fingers beneath the edge of his hood and peels it back, and the sight of who stands beneath it wraps around my stomach and squeezes so hard I feel weightless all over again.
“HelloOuterlander.” His voice comes out dark and wrong, and his eyes are black. “Or should I say Lyra?”
“Finn?!”
The name barely leaves my mouth before his hand lifts, and the blast hits me dead centre, ripping me off my feet and throwing me backwards so fast I don’t even see the rocks behind me.
Searing agony cracks through my skull as it takes the full impact, the world blurring just long enough for me to catch a flash of blue scales landing behind him.
Then everything goes black.
